The Reverse Robin Hood: or I Fought the Beast and the Beast Won

I’m not sure exactly when it happened that the British public decided that Bankers were agents of the devil, but it certainly seems to be the case judging by headlines this week. Well, maybe the press is on to something…

And that no man might buy or sell, save he that had the mark, or the name of the beast, or the number of his name. Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast: for it is the number of a man; and his number is Six hundred threescore and six.

Revelations 13: 16-17 (King James Version)

A sad day today: in the case of The Office of Fair Trading versus The Minions of Satan (aka the High Street Banks) a decision was found in favour of the banks, ending several years of legal uncertainty. Well, for now…

Aleister Crowley, who declared himself the Great Beast. I'd prefer to have a cup of tea with him than sign a credit agreement with a high street bank any day!

Of course I do not literally think the British High Street Banks are the Beast prophesied in the final book of the Bible ; do they look like a lamb while speaking like a dragon? Um, well, now you mention it… That they are anti-christ seems quite clear: I mean usury (the lending of money at interest) is a mortal sin anyway isn’t it? So I like the term  “minions of Satan”, and encourage people to treat them just as you would if Old Nick appeared and asked you to sign a paper in exchange for a pile of  hot gold – if you must sign, sign in blood. This usually gets you chucked out of the bank before proceedings get nasty. Trust me, I know.

CJ applies for an overdraft facility.

Better you get chucked out or an ambulance or the police called than you lose your soul by dealing with the Devil.

What profiteth a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose his own soul?

Luke 9: 23

Yes I’m joking – I’m just mightily sore at this decision, and yet I can’t argue with the legal logic. It was the correct legal decision – but there are wider issues at stake…

The Reverse Robin Hood

So what is the Reverse Robin Hood? Something I found in the Anne Summers Guide to Improbably Acrobatic Acts? Not quite!It’s actually a memorable line from the Supreme Court ruling today

though Mr Sumption QC (for the banks) vigorously disputed Lord Mance’s suggestion that his clients were engaged in a sort of “reverse Robin Hood
exercise”

The phrase amused me, and lies at the heart of the controversy.

Banks exist to make their shareholders a profit. This is actually the responsibility of any publicly floated company, and therefore one can not blame banks for trying to make profits, no matter how many billion that may be. What is actually at stake here is not if bank fees are appropriate – I think it entirely appropriate I pay for the service provided; the question is how that payment should be taken.

At the moment we have ‘free banking’ in the UK – well 80% of people do.  The remaining 20%, the villains, in fact subsidize the free banking by paying these charges, which make up 30% of the revenues gained by the banks from their Current Accounts.

The villains who go overdrawn without proper authorisation pay many times the actual cost incurred to the banks by their indiscretion – and as a result, the 80% of good folks pay nothing. Fair enough?

Except — those 20% are the poorest members of society on the whole. People with enough money to live rarely go in to these unauthorised overdrafts simply for fun. OK a few do, because they have failed to watch their spending, or because a £25 fee is no big deal to them, so they would rather pay it than delay gratification. Unfortunately, for those who are actually in the bread line, an emergency like sickness means one often has to make the decision between going over and paying £25 fee to get the seven pounds fifty  for a prescription charge, or  not getting the pills. And trust me I know -I have a drawer full of prescriptions I have never collected.  A job interview? Same problem. I have lost all my savings I had amassed and bunt through my disposable income and had to borrow heavily just to get to an interview for a position I really wanted – the train fare alone was two weeks income for me. And I did not get the job, again…

Now to be fair, much of this is NOT a problem if you are on the dole, Income Support or similar. I know it’s hard, but I honestly miss the luxury of knowing I would get my bi-weekly giro. And free prescriptions! Unfortunately the only  state benefit I receive does not give on exemption from that or Council Tax for example, and a helluva lot of other people are in the same boat. It’s really mainly a problem for the working poor – those who actually do work, but are on low incomes. No amount of financial planning or savings can protect you against some of life’s disasters when you have £17.50 a week after rent & council tax to live off, and these people make up that villainous 20%.

And they pay everyone’s bank costs, covering the 80% who actually are never going to need to worry about having to go suddenly overdrawn. Hence “reverse Robin Hood” – not a sex position, but actually the way UK banking works - “robbing from the poor to pay for the rich”

The Sheriff of Nottingham ponders the size of his bonus as he prepares another Credit Card launch - so much easier than the olde methods of oppression!

This was NOT the issue at stake in the court case. In fact the Court Ruling goes some way to making clear that in fact the ruling was on the appropriateness of the tool used by the Office of Fair Trading to pursue the demonic horde – er sorry, I mean High Street banks – and that the tool in question, an EU directive, was incorrect. The OFT has gone off to lick it’s wounds, and I expect an announcement shortly – there are still plenty of legal options if they have the will to continue the fight. There is actually a FAR more dangerous legal threat to the banks lurking in the wings, but I shall ignore that for now as it has nothing to do with bank charges.

My Situation

I have just been hit for £100 by my bank for bank charges – puzzling, given that I have only one direct debit or other agreement, no standing orders, only one payment goes out – my phone bill – which I had funds to cover and have not gone over my agreed overdraft as far as I can see – until the charges came in last month, pushing me over.  Now i have been charged for being in debt cos I could not clear the last charge before this month.  That charge was equal to 10 days disposable income for me – the new charges represent six weeks disposable income. I am now locked in what will rapidly become a spiral of charges, which will eventually result in my ending up with a huge debt to my bank – all from one £25 charge, the cause of which I am still not aware of.

I have written to my bank, and had some correspondence – and was interested by what was said. I noted that I had signed up for a current account on the understanding that I could not actually go overdrawn, and that my solo card prevented me spending money I did not have. I was informed that in fact I can now go overdrawn, the contracts T&C’s* having been subject to change, and that they as a bank can in fact not stop me doing this, and can not allow me to put some block on my account so I can’t spend what I don’t have. I can NOT have a limit by which I can not go outside my overdraft. I asked why, and my understanding is this “service” is provided by a third party company. I need to look in to this, as it could have quite serious ramifications in terms of the legality of my original contract, subsequent variation,and Data Protection regarding sharing of my personal data with subsidiary or affiliated groups.

The End of Free Banking?

And here is the big bogeyman – the fear that like America, most of Europe, in fact most of the World we might have to pay a small charge for our banking.  The righteous 80% are positively frothing when you suggest that actually everyone paying the ACTUAL cost of their banking services would not really be unreasonable, rather than the poorest subsidizing everyone else.   The fact such an arrangement would be in agreement with principles of natural justice does not seem to bother them – they are terrified the bank might take their money.  Yet to the poorest the current arrangement is crippling, little more than loansharking. Why do I say this?

As you may have gathered I resent paying bank charges beyond my usual debit interest and the odd small fee, like the £9 which I used to be charged when I actually signed up to my contract if I did something dumb. That is today £25.  So when I needed money last month  (and I have just been scraping around to get change off the floor to buy a loo roll  – I get my money on Saturday) I decided that I would be a good responsible citizen, and extend my overdraft by fifty quid. It’s £200. I did not think £250 would break them. I had not been overdrawn beyond my limit in three years. I have no CCJ’s against me, and a small but regular income. So applied online for a one month £50 extension.

And they said it would cost me £25 for arranging the overdraft. Er what? It costs me £25 to go “informally overdrawn” – and £25 if I do it properly too? SO I phoned up, they confirmed the charge, and refused to extend my overdraft anyway. I ended up borrowing off friends, who ar every long suffering but realise my situation. Thanks to everyone who has helped so often!

Now the bank’s defence on their practices is that if you make an arrangement with them you will not incur the charges. I tried to make an arrangement – and the charges were still there? No less – exactly the same fee. So if i actually went overdrawn illegitimately, or legitimately, it would cost sthe same. And what is worse, they refused me anyway. So the bank has clearly decided I’m a bad credit risk – yet when I put my card in to try and get my last fiver out, it asked me if I wanted to pay £25 for the privilege of an “informal overdraft arrangement”.

I declined, and added another prescription to my collection.

So if Free Banking is threatened, I won’t cry too much. I’ll still pay, but you can be certain that te 80% will make sure that they are not ripped off, as they have the voices and power, and I don’t think it will happen anyway. Why? People are getting used to shopping around for the best bank account deals. They are realising that when a bank changes the rates or charges, they can move their money elsewhere. Credit Cards (which I don’t have) taught people the esoteric joys of balance tranfers. We are not like our parents who stayed with the bank down the road for life. Competition would reduce bank charges immediately once they are moved from those who can’;t afford them to those who can.

Furthermore, the government is the biggest stake holder in many of the High Street banks now. The bail out, what was it £62 billion or whatever, saved the economy. From my reading Gordon Brown actually did save the world, well at least the global economy while the Americans dillied and dallied. Good on him! I’m no fan of New Labour, but it was a beautiful bit of political intervention.  So maybe the political will exists to actually stop this nonsense, and stop the increasing gap between rich and poor in our society?

There is something pathetic about an administration legislating to end Child Poverty, yet not looking at the causes of that poverty, of which ruinous bank charges on the parents of said kids must come high in the causes. The government controls the banks – and can promise free banking on the banks they are major stakeholders in.

And the banks: the banks can stop this now. All they have to do is cap unauthorised spending – stop people taking money they have not got out of the cash machine, and charge what it actually costs to bounce a direct debit or whatever, not some exorbitant fee.  Sure people would suffer, as I do, because they can’t lay their hands on cash at the end of the month – but if you put them in a cycle of bank charges like this they will soon have no money by the middle, then the start of the month. So stop selling debt to third party companies banks, and make your limits stick. And get rid of the ludicrous charge on AGREED overdrafts.

Yes, profits might fall a little. Yes shareholders in the banks might get slightly lower dividends. But how many bank shareholders actually have kids in poverty? And aren’t we all shareholders when we pay tax since the bail out? Are we not entitled to join the party?

I fought the Beast – and the Beast won – for now. Yet it will not continue forever…

cj x

* and before anyone says – bet you did not read the Terms and Conditions carefully – oh, how wrong you are! I actually read them and understood them fully, and in fact far better in light of the relevant legislation than my bank appears to have.  I wonder why they do not hire solicitors to read their own T&C’s, rather than apparently just copy them from each other and earlier agreements? One day very soon this could cost them so much that a lot of banks might go under…  I find it incredible that many Banks seem unaware of the statutory requirements of the Consumer Credit Acts…

The Second Sermon of the Rev. Jerome

More silliness from the Dawkins forum, from my series of sermons. This one was much misunderstood at the time!

In this, the second of my Sunday sermons, I would like to take a moment to thank you all for the stunned silence which met my first sermon. At least I would like to think it was stunned silence — I suspect in reality it was either utter indifference, or an unwillingness to sit through a lengthy exposition. With these thoughts in mind I will now ask Mr Grimble on organ to play “Anarchy in the UK“, and for us to reflect deeply on the moving sentiments of that 20th century divine, the Rev. J. Rotten.

Thank you, especially to the choristers whose enthusiastic moshing brought a tear to my eye, especially that low aimed kick from Scrubbage minor. Let us proceed…

This evening, as we have all just witnessed, I received a right kick in the balls. And as I reeled around clutching my testes (and let us not forget testament derives from the same root, from the Roman custom of swearing veracity upon the testicles: still I know many of you know this for i have frequently heard you refer to the New Testament as “bollocks”, a knowledge fo ancient linguistics I find surprising in this remote village, but which assures me of your intellectual fervour and that my sermonizing has some effect… anyway, I was moved to think by Scrubbages attack on my manhood, “how often in life do we need a sharp metaphorical kick in the nads; and how often do we receive it without asking.”

Now it is fashionable these days to decry old fashioned notion of good and evil, and to pretend that evil and sin simply do not exist. How can such nonsense persist in a culture filled with learned scientists, dedicated to truth and rationality? Empirically i can assure you that sin and evil exist – for evil even now dwells within my nads, a nagging ferocious pain, and the look of ferocious malice and delight on Scrubbages face as he kicked me left me no doubt that he has a black sadistic soul, and a sadistic streak which would put the divine Marquis to shame: in short that he is exactly of the normal character of choir boys everywhere. If there is one error popularly ascribed to Rome I can have no understanding of, it is the often claimed propensity of their priests for choir boys. I doubt it can be more than a myth, as would anyone with even passing acquaintance with the breed who sing here.

Now does any here doubt the existence of evil? Scrubbage will deliver empirical evidence to your satisfaction, if you would care to come forward? He has a most excellent right boot? No? Why are my altar calls so unpopular these days? Very well, let us proceeed…

It would be easy for me to administer my wrath upon the unfortunate Scrubbage, were it not that I too was once a boy, and know that the urge to aim a kick a pompous old balding jackass in a cassock in the balls is one not lightly resisted. This is part of that burden of sin we all face — the urge to do what comes naturally, but what one really should not, for the benefit of others. I don’t care much if you want to spend an evening with the entire Welsh Rugby team high on drugs in a San Francisco bathhouse: what you do in the privacy of your own head is none of my business. Despite rumours about me climbing a ladder to stare in to the voluptuous Edna Nibbins bedroom window, I can assure you what you do in your bed rooms is no concern of mine. Looking at the size of most of you reared on a diet of MacDonalds and super-sized choco milkshakes, oozing out of your Sunday best, buttons straining against cheap polyester even imagining your sex lives renders me nauseous. I’d prefer to develop a mental lens cap when it comes to your vices – solitary, communal, or with the goat, the fetters, and the lard.

What bothers me is when you do not act in a spirit of love, charity and forgiveness. Note I say ACT. You can mentally act like a James Bond Villain for all I care, torturing unfortunates, sleeping with a bevy of beautiful women and winning the Church Bingo four weeks running. If however your actions bring misery upon others, then we have a problem. To think about such things – well it’s none of my business, and who am I to know? Yet to act with malice, to bring about deliberate evil, that is to engage in sin. And the problem with dwelling on evil thoughts is one tends to get rather caught up in them, like a girl trying to work out where her boyfriend was on Tuesday night after the pub, after Chastity Entwhistle gave him a lift home. She thinks and thinks and thinks: Chastity is a slapper, as many here can attest (nods to Chastity), and Brian a Dork – but Fiona’s mind dwells upon it till she calls Chastity a slag in public. Oh how easy it is to sin! See, I just did!

Now we often sin quite inadvertently. and cause misery to others. We should be sincerely repentant, and do our best to make amends – Chastity, did i forget to mention the Miss Joyful Prize for Raffia Work you won this has had the five pound prize replaced with a mini-break to Disneyland? – and we should sincerely ask for forgiveness, which looking at the surly pout on Chastity’s prize haddock face may be some time in coming. Damn! I did it again! Er, Chastity, see me after the sermon…

So why does evil come, when all we desire is good?

SEX.

Yes, you heard me, it’s all down to SEX. And I am deadly serious. For in the act of sexual reproduction, we take on Original Sin, the base mammalian traits and survival characteristics encoded in our Selfish Genes. In short, we act with animal instincts, because we are biological beasties, born through sexual reproduction. And let us never forget the stirring final chapter of the Book of our Prof, in which RD tells us a great truth – that we are by nature, naughty, wicked and inclined to act like irritating little shits, like in fact, choir boys. Yet RD reminds us that we have a true Grace, a chance of Redemption, for we alone of the greater primates (excluding possibly choir boys – I understand one once acted altruistically, a little angel in South Park Colorado called Eric Cartman, though others have expressed doubts) are capable of making moral choices, seeing ahead, and acting for the good of others – in short repudiating our selfish genes, and embracing loving kindness through imaginative sympathy with our neighbour.

Miss Jones! Mr Louder! Not that kind of embracing and loving! there is a place for that sort of thing – its the vestry cupboard, through that little door over there! And yes the flying helmet and the wet stick of celery is imaginative, but not that imaginative – I watched ‘Allo ‘Allo too!

Anyway, lest I drone on till the older members need funerals and someone decides to try and get a discount rate, yes, I can see you yawn. Yes, this is an awful lot like Christianity, and the teachings of Jesus and Paul. Yet if CS Lewis can get a Hollywood blockbuster deal, and so can JRR with his trilogy, well there has to be a place for crypto-Christian messages in todays society. And unlike those gentleman, I’m here and happy to be called a boring old fart and answer back.

Now if we can all sing Hymn no. 23 I fell in Love with a Starship Trooper – I trust you all brought your torches??? – I will just take Chastity outside for some much needed personal catechism.

May Your Mods be With You…

j x

PM’s Pledge To Flood Devastated Cumbria

“PM’s Pledge To Flood Devastated Cumbria” is a headline today on Sky News. I thought it unfortunate, and wondered how he plans to get the waters to rise above the level of the local mountains. Presumably his plan involves damning the lakes, levelling Scafell Pike, etc etc, and building a huge dyke around the county before letting the North Atlantic rush in?  Flooding the county further seems a little unnecessary, given the “Act of God” (though one has to ask which one is intended by that phrase?) which has already done a pretty good job.  Still if you are in Cumberland or Westmoreland might I suggest starting to build an ark, and voting Tory? (I can’t believe I suggested the latter…)

My friend DC comes from Seaton near Cockermouth — I can’t see him being impressed by this latest government initiative. Or maybe Sky News intended to say “PM’s Pledge to Assist Cumbria, Devastated by Floods?” I assume the latter, but my reading was more interesting!

Best wishes to all Cumbrians struggling with the flood, and all News Editors struggling with the English language.

cj x

PS They have now an hour later changed the headline to “PM’s £1m Pledge To Help Flood-Hit Cumbria”

Shame the former version was more interesting, while significantly less accurate!

A Haunting in Normal Terrace

OK I was watching A Haunting last night as Liz is off back home to Bicester and wanted to chat and watch TV. In the course of it i decided to tell the story of how my house came to be haunted…

Long long ago in the late 19th century the area where my house stands today was a muddy field. One day a builder came along and started to dig foundations. Now it just happened at that time a brand new Indian restaurant (Cheltenham’s first) opened down on the High Street. People flocked form far and wide to taste the exotic cuisine.

Now I am sure many of you are aware that Cheltenham’s reputation for being posh originated with the spa, but it was perpetuated when the town became a fashionable place of retirement for retired colonial administrators and military folk back from service in India.

So when the restaurant opened it was an instant hit. There was only one problem.

The family who ran the restaurant came from Kerala and the cuisine was flavoured extensively with coconut milk,  and dessicated coconut. The aging colonels were on the whole more used to Northern Indian cuisine – and so as they hurried home with their takeaways, and en route excitedly tasted the food. Disgusted, many simply hurled the cartons repulsed to one side – and mainly in to the foundations of what became my house.

The restaurant soon closed – it was just too alien to British tastes of the time –even ex-colonial ones– but my house was built on those foundations.

And that is why today my home is haunted - it is built on the site of an ancient Indian burial ground.

(And if you believe that you will believe anything!)

cj x

My birthday cake

I sometimes  think my family don’t take my interest in parapsychology too seriously…

My birthday cake

It was delicious though!

cj x

My fortieth birthday complete with infamous game photos

OK, so I’m still recovering from a long weekend of debauchery. Well ok, I drank half a pint on Sunday night!

A good crowd of folks descended on Cheltenham, and some took part in almost everything, and some took part in only one event, and some appeared for five minutes then vanished as swiftly as they arrived! I think most people have come here looking for the infamous Screws of the World game photos though, so I’ll concentrate on posting those!

The Game

For those who don’t know, the Screws of the World is just a slang term for a British newspaper, The News of the World, which is actually quite readable and is a weekend paper – the daily is called The Sun, best known for it’s famous Page 3 girls.  It’s a tabloid in the British sense, not the American, it reports real news! Anyway as the game was just named after it you don’t have to know any more – the game was invented by Ben Hayes and myself back in 2000 one long hot summer, and we played it then with hilarious results, and some of the teams narrowly avoiding arrest!

So for my fortieth I decided to revive the game, and it can be explained simply – nine players were split in to three teams of three each, and given three hours to take photos to illustrate ten of the most outrageous tabloid headlines i could find (not all from the News of the World of course!) They had a total of forty real tabloid headlines to choose from.  The photos that follow are some of the “best” of the attempts – team Jez, Martin and Barbie won in the end, their photos being voted the best, but that hardly matters. Here follow the photos, each captioned with the tabloid headline they were trying to illustrate…

The Photos

Devil Toaster Ruined my Life!

What car would Jesus Drive?

Werewolves Protest Plan to Blow up the Moon

Nun Fight at the OK Chapel

Nun Fight at the OK Chapel

9' Guinea Pig Attacks Joggers

9' Guinea Pig Attacks Joggers

Man takes out Restraining Order on Invisible Friend

Gnomes of Death/Killer Strippers

Satan employs PR firm to improve his image

The Fatal Fart

Cowardly Matador Only Fights Rabbits

My toilet Roll Holder is Possessed

How to Housetrain Your Werewolf

Woman gives birth to 8lb Duck

hula hoops lead to alien abduction

hula hoops lead to alien abduction

hula hoops lead to alien abduction

What Car Would Jesus Drive?

Judge who refused to allow Witches to Adopt turned in to Hamster

Vegan Vampire Attacks Tree

Vegan Vampire Attacks Tree

Bad attempts at Fiction: The Case of the Haunted Dorm, part 1.

Introductory Remarks

Let’s just say this is fiction, though obviously I write about what I know. as authors are always told to. The problem is I often write so transparently about what I know that I could end up sued for libel, and that would be awkward. So I’ll try a short story, because I feel the urge to write, and the characters will be so unbelievable and preposterous that no one could possibly recognize themselves or real events in this. Honest, guv’nor.

For a while now I have been drafting stories about Lars Gunnarsen, a half-Danish psychic investigator, told by the narrator, who we will call CJ, because those are my initials. Lars is a true anti-hero- a swaggering  ghastly fellow, pompous, overbearing and badly dressed, who claims to be a parapsychologist and hangs around a university being old, fat and bald. You will be delighted to hear Lars does not actually appear at all  in this story so far as I have written it, because it’s only Part One.

Writing takes discipline and free time, and in my case endless editing, rewrites, and experiments in different tenses and perspectives. So I banged this out in “nne take”, and have fixed the obvious typos but not even read it back yet, so it’s abysmal. Hey, at least I’m honest.

In this story I went for the raconteur’s first person perspective – the narrator is telling a story of past events, and i’m not convinced it works at all. Nor as ghost stories go is it very exciting –  clumsy attempts at humour mar it, and it lacks any tension. It is designed to introduce the main protagonists of what was going to be a book, from when I stupidly thought about a collection of Lar’s misadventures as a “Psychic Detective.”  Still, I can’t write for toffee, but you might if really bored find it vaguely bearable – and if anyone enjoys it, I’ll post some more…

The Case of the Haunted Dorm

(being in the main the first great adventure of the magnificent Psychic Detective Lars Gunnarsen and his pathetic, dimwitted associates, as told by his friend and lackey, general dogsbody and social secretary, CJ).

All stories must begin somewhere, so mine begins here, in a shabby room in a college dormitory. It is now six days since I arrived at university; I have still never kissed a girl, driven a car or smoked dope, though I have conjured a spirit to visible appearance. I guess that counts  for something? Yes, I know you don’t believe me, and neither does anyone else – well except QC.

Still when Wicked Uncle QC announced he was gay, and I dropped my coffee on my lap in shock, and my other new friends made their excuses and left  (convinced he’d bugger them on the spot one presumes?), well what else could I boast of to change the subject?

I’d met QC in the refectory dinner queue my first afternoon, and he seemed a decent, bookish chap. Nothing about his tweeds, the beard or his fob watch said gay to me. He looked normal, human? How was I to know? I’d never met one of “them” before,,, So I’d  asked him back, and then this, my reputation in shreds, and an awkward silence as the door shut behind my new friends.

So I tell him of the August nights at the Priory, and he just laughed. Laughed — but believed me, a reaction far I found far more disturbing than the derision and scepticism I usually faced. And after my tale ended, he yanked open a bottle of wine with his penknife, and told me of his experiments with Crowley’s Magick. And I did not believe him, but it was so much better than “where are you from, what A levels did you do, what course are you on?” the name rank and serial number of Fresher’s Week. I suggested we walked to the Off License for another, even though I don’t drink.

That evening saw a terrible gale, and QC and I sitting on the racecourse stand, shouting words in to a wind that blew them spitefully back in our faces, drinking wine and laughing wildly  as lightning split the sky, laughing manically at obscure in-jokes.  Lovecraft, MR James, The Illuminatus Trilogy, Crowley. “Do what thou wilt with the hole in the floor!” I yelled, flailing my arms about. QC was trying to inscribe a pentagram with his right arm, but it had six horns exalted. (Note to the non-occultist reader – Normally pentagrams have one or two horns exalted, depending which way up they are, and only five horns total, but in QC’s drunken madness he seemed to achieve non-Euclidean geometry Lovecraft would be so proud of him!)

Maybe I was not seeing straight.  OK, we only drank two bottles of wine, and I less than half of one, but it was my initiation to alcohol. The storm wore itself out, and crawled off over the hills to die, and we strode back to the college, laughing in defiance at the rain and our sodden clothes. And as we entered the campus, I shook his hand, and slipped round to the other door. After all, could I really afford to be seen with a homosexual? People might think I was one!

That was three days ago. Now I’m listening to God’s Own Medicine, The Mission’s finest album, and trying to work out where I stowed my underwear when I unpacked. I’ve hand washed the same pair in the sink three times – the situation is rapidly becoming desperate. Grunge is still three years in the future – I’m no prophet, but I’m pioneering the look, but I’m far from happy to pioneer the smell. .I’ve considered soaking my leather jacket in patchouli oil, but somehow the idea of crusty underpants still repel me. I’m a mess, and a disorganized one, but I peel off the tired underpants, and half naked waving the disgusting things about my head, start to goth it up, a wild dance, failing my arms, pirouetting round the room, singing loudly “Heaven or Hell I know them well…”

So when six burly sports lads walk straight in to my room, I freeze red faced. I’m not one to deliberately reveal my shortcomings to the world. I grab the houseplant my sister gave me as a parting gift to cover my modesty. Somehow, the underpants which fly from my hand to the lampshade, and hang accusingly, and the feel of my nads on the terracotta pot do not comfort. I am, just slightly, phased. OK, I’m gulping back incipient tears.

Oddly, the lads do not seemed bothered at all. Instead, they just start laying out sleeping bags on my room floor, as another huge hairy guy comes in with a crate of Newcastle Brown ale. It appears they are here for a while, and they nod at me as they start rearranging furniture to make camp beds in what was till moments ago my personal space. “Put some clothes on mate” is all I get in way of explanation, and so I dash to the wardrobe, and pull out my dressing gown – and a pile of clean underpants cascade to the floor. A silver lining to my PE student cloud?

And so I came to first hear of ye famous ghost of Bluebell Halls. Well not immediately – but within a few minutes, the lads explained their entire block had fled their rooms, and were planning on staying out till someone got rid of the ghost. The Duty Warden was the Head of the PE Course, so they were not going to him.  Only two people on campus knew of such things, me and QC,, who they call the “Gay Nazi Wizard”. (QC has a fascination with the Third Reich – I’d noticed that already). So they has decided to take shelter with QC and I, half going to each. I inquired how they decided who got to stay with the GNW, and who got to stay with me. “We played cards” said hairy bloke –”and we lost”.

This place does nothing for your ego…

So, the facts? The students, all training as Sports Teachers, live in one of the new blocks. Less than twenty years old, the blocks are red brick structures each designated by a letter — ‘A Block’ to ‘H block’. They cluster round the edge of the playing fields that make up most of the campus, I live in the main building, an old Victorian hotel converted to a dorm, with the canteen just outside my window. The spook has driven the lads out of D Block, a building which as I say is no older than I am. In fact, from the little I have seen they look like Barratt homes new builds, converted to dorms. Nothing less spooky than that! Now the main building, that has an atmosphere, though it may just be the stench of stale socks, too much deodorant sweat and my now infamous underpants. Actually probably the latter. Oh well….

Yes, I’m getting on to the ghost. It haunts the stairwell, and every night at seven pm they hear it, all of them. They joked about it at first, but after three nights they started listening for it, and the jokes started to fall flat. On the fourth night they waited, and then hearing the spook panicked and fled outside. By the fifth night they were all hopelessly inebriated, and milling about in the lobby, loudly shushing each other, till it happened right on time. Tonight was the final straw, the most dogged sceptic converted. Clark had had the presence of mind to tape record it, and they would show me, so I could exorcise it. Exorcise it?!!! ME? WTF?

The tape was unenlightening. When I played it back an eerie silence descended upon the room, but that was the spookiest thing – watching these hefty lads listening entranced, fearful even, to a hissy cassette. Some swearing, lots of banging about, a few comments as they placed the recorder, then a slow rhythmic bumping. I was utterly unimpressed. “Where’s the ghost then?” They looked at me like I was an idiot. It seems the bumping was the ghost.

Just after seven, every evening, there was the same bumping sound on the stairs. Jack’s girlfriend noticed it first, while waiting for him in the lobby, and thought it was him coming down – but when she turned no one was there. The next night, two of them heard the footfall, as they were playfully strangling each other in some macho wrestling. And then, everyone started listening, and a senior student who had lived there a couple of years back had told them the horrible story that explained it all.

About fifteen years back a homesick Fresher, a girl with definite problems, could take it no more. She was a sports student, and unwilling to return to a troubled home life and admit defeat, she hanged herself at the top of the stairs. She stood there, balancing precariously on a medicine ball, and then let it slip from under her feet, bouncing down the stairs, as she gasped out her life.

Now it seems the tragedy replays – every October, around the anniversary, the haunting begins, and the sound of the ball bouncing down the stairs can be heard again.  Worse, some people feel a tightness in the chest, and a strangling sensation, and fight for breath as their legs go wobbly and their heart races, as they experience what the girl felt that night. If they don’t run, then they join her in death.

It all sounds pretty real to me. I have no idea what a medicine ball was, something graduate doctors might attend? I get the idea though – it’s American I’m told, a transatlantic version of a football or some such.  Bigger, supersized – it’s a Yank thing. My immediate thought was the lads were a great big bunch of wusses – I mean this does not sound  that scary to me. I looked over the thousand pounds of rippling muscle and humourless simian encamped on my floor, and decided to keep my thoughts to myself.

Worse, the expect me and QC to do something, get rid of it. Now ok, I’ve seen a  ghost I think, in a Priory on a summers evening scarcely a year ago, and some truly weird events things followed. I believe, I the arch-cynic, yes, I believe in spooks. I’ve started to collect the folklore of my home county, and I’ve read a lot of books, boring to death everyone as I pontificate on the subject of psychical research. Yet somehow the idea of being a ghosthunter seems a lot less attractive now – in the words of Ghostbusters –”they expect results”.

Now I’m not a ghostbuster – I’m a ghosthunter.  I hate exercise and exorcising about equally, or I would not be reading Religion and History, I’d be a sports student. I know nothing about magic, and my one attempt in that direction was enough to put me off for life.  Yet somehow admitting to these goons I had no idea how to deal with this: unthinkable. So  I  just nod, grab the keys to Martin’s room – he seemed fairly presentable, and I hate to think what might be in Chad’s room judging by the musky odour he exudes.  Walk right out, with what I hope is an air of solemn bravery and cool mystery, that “hero off to face unspeakable peril” air.

Then I return embarrassed, and put my jeans on, as my dressing gown robe flaps open, and I realise I’m still half naked.  It’s not like this in the movies.

I stride purposefully outside, and loiter in a shadowy corner, wondering when the next train for Suffolk leaves. And then an apparition manifests from across the yard. A ghostly figure wearing a linen suit and panama, carrying a tin box under the arm, and brandishing a cavalry sabre vigorously as it advances straight at me. It knows my name, and as I recoil in terror I finally recognize QC’s whisper, and look up from my cowering stance.

Er, yes I’m fine I assure him. Just a sudden attack of cramp. This man has no fashion sense. Or I don’t. Either way, it seems we really are going to spend the night in D Block. Yep, just me, the gay nazi wizard,and the malevolent murderous spook.

Now I could keep you in suspense, build atmosphere and tell you of how we held a long vigil in that lonely place while we whispered sagely of Secrets Man Was Not Meant To Know,a nd how the ghost manifested, and we bravely faced it down. I’d be lying.

D Block was actually much better than my room, positively modern, and while the heating seemed jammed on full and the pipes gurgles every so often, well it was pretty cosy. We turned all the lights on, examined the haunted stairwell, and then tried to peer in to the kitchen of  Block C across the way. Well I did, it’s a girls dorm. (Yes, I said kitchen. I’m not a pervert. That’s Lars, but he is not in my story yet.)

OK, so QC finds a couple of bottles of something called White Lightning in a cupboard, and a bottle of Scotch. I made toast and availed myself of their jam, and he cooked a full English breakfast half emptying the fridge,and we mutter about what we are going to do. And we decide the obvious course of action – say we had got rid of the ghost, and do absolutely nothing. That should do it – their imaginations had simply run away with them. We will reassure them, they will cease to worry, and we can bask in the glory and use the Sports Students to take over the college. QC muttered about annexing the English Department, and I suggest a putsch in the Student Union Bar. As he has now drunk one bottle of White Lightning and is half way through his second, he nods enthusiastic assent. Hell, I think he would have been enthusiastic anyway. We practice limp wristed fascist salutes, and I agreed we should found the dreaded Pink Shirts for our putsch. I’m far from a Nazi, as you can imagine – but his parody complete with camp goosestepping makes me smile. Bad taste, sure. But funny…

Yeah, I know, I’m  supposed to be telling you about Lars, the so-called Psychic Detective. I’m getting to that bit.

Dawn sees me curled up on the loo floor, feeling like someone had pounded my head with the toilet seat. Judging by the vomit caked in my pullover, and the acrid taste in my mouth, well maybe they had. Then I recall QC’s offer of a quick drink. Not that I got  muc more than a mugful of Scotch; QC drank most of it. And the smell of frying food made me run outside, and heave pathetically over the accusing flower bed. QC strolls out cheerfully, eating a fried egg sandwich, and my heavings bear  noxious fruit. “You look great” he chuckles enthusiastically.  “I’ll tell them the ghost tried to possess you and we barely escaped with our souls”. I am growing swiftly to detest QC.

Of course it does not work. Sports students are not stupid. Did I really say that? They listen to QC’s elaborate tale of incubi, succubae, his role in The Hermetic Order of the  Silver Twilight and his exalted grade as an Ineptus Exemptus 2=3 or whatever,and his great magickal battle with the sppok (in which I seem to play the role of hapless victim, I note).  At first they listen with sympathy, then with growing disbelief, then with gales of  laughter. At least we cheered them up.

It is abundantly clear the denizens of D Block are not convinced, so while QC devised a ritual based on Crowley’s Magick in Theory & Practice, I snuck off and called the chaplain. And you know what? He did not laugh at me.

The Reverend James — I’d seen him at Chapel on first day, where we had sung interminable choruses of some repetitive stuff about Jesus loving us, complete with twangy electric guitar accompaniment> That was bad, but the group of gangly girls in leotards who danced up and down the aisles, miming and waving streamers were worse. New fangled religion, I think I prefer the occasional Methodism of my youth, or the Anglican weddings I’d sat through forced in to some crushed velvet page boy ensemble. Yeah  I’m studying Religion after the Priory experience, but I was never a fan of this God business, and am still not religious. This chapel thing reached new depths of banality.

Still Rev James seemed ok, young, fresh faced, enthusiastic and trying to be “down with the kids”, a  walking stereotype of “trendy vicar”. So I call him, the number was in my Fresher Pack. Wisdh I hadn’t, as he actually worries me more. It seems he has only been here three years, but yes he has heard the suicide story, and yes he has heard each year of the bouncing ball ghost, and yes, every year he comes out and blesses the building. (So not much success then?) He will be right over, and will say the prayers again. We can meet him at D Block after lunch, 2pm sharp.

Turns out an Anglican exorcism is not much to write home about. Technically it’s called Deliverance Ministry, and they wander round saying prayers and I think sprinkling water. I was standing outside, expecting the Rev to be hurled bodily out by ye olde malevolent spook, before the whole building explodes Hollywood style. So I stand peering in, with about thirty others, denizens of D Block, friends and hangers on. QC is on usual form, holding forth to this audience on the inhabitants of the astral world, but they were really just eyeing the door nervously, not giving his spiel the attention it deserves. I catch something QC mutters about Secret Chiefs and  Akashic Records, but I am not really listening either, and he peters out halfway through Holy Guardian Angels.

And then the Reverend Bob James emerges, and smiles a lot, inviting us to a meeting called Greenhouse where we can grow in the Christian Faith.  He gives us  a little pep talk about a personal relationship with Jesus –QC says he wants  “a religion, not a boyfriend”, but no one laugs. The Trendy Vicar makes a few a lame jokes, stares hard at QC, informs us we should keep this all very quiet to protect the college’s reputation, and roars off on his motorbike. Oh, well that’s that.

Church of England 1, Beasties From Beyond 0.

We thought it was all over. In fact, it was only just beginning.

(And I may one day post part 2, if really bored.)

Skeptics – Help Stop CJ23.com!

I was just thinking: we have Robert Lancaster’s excellent Stop Sylvia site, which I think is an excellent cause, and now we have other similar sites dedicated to stopping prominent woo’s.

I originally intended on the morning of April 1st to open www.stop-cj23.com but sadly the domain registration would have taken too long and cost money. And I don’t have any money (more of which in a moment!)

It is not for me to boost his ego by pointing out what an-arch proponent of woo the poster known as CJ.23, Jerome, Chris Jensen Romer or in his purple phase “undecipherable squiggle symbol” is. Let us just say that he is well known to hang out in all the places the usual suspects can be found – parapsychology, ghosthunting, paranormal TV, history and philosophy of science, Science Festivals, occult convocations, General Synods and on Rainy Days and Mondays the Dawkins and JREF forums.

And what does he do? He peddles woo. What woo? All sort of woo. Who do? you do – er no, I think that is heading in to a Bowie lyric. Anyway, he often acts as a religious apologist on this very forum, peddling the most disturbing (and researched) claims about factual distortions, misapplied logic and pseudohistory, and is on record as disputing almost everything from “there is no evidence to God” to “theism is irrational” to even “extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.” On one occasion he sank a slow as to agree with Larsen.

Given his history of involvement with both mainstream parapsychology, paranormal TV from Discovery’s Ghosthunters (not the silly US plumbing one. ) to Most Haunted and Most Haunted Live, and his interminable use of bandwidth arguing pedantically about silly pointless things, I think CJ must be stopped. Worst of all he is An Anglican, a particularly virulent breed of literalist Creationist monstrosity, who make “sinners in the hands of an Angry God” look mild with their famous “cake or death” mantra.

So I have decided to end his reign of woo, and get rid of him. How? It’s simple. CJ is broke, having gone to the Edinburgh Science Festival (Saturday precursor events excellent) and then with an SPR Study Day, and investigation in a Castle and then the Cheltenham Science Festival in the next few weeks. He is tremendously broke. He needs money, and fast! So how can he get it?

Well, I will set up www.stop-CJ23.com and solicit donations from the sceptical community of course! (I’ll also advertise both sceptical books, and even woo books on Nazareth not existing if I can make a few tax free quid out of it. Do you believe in UFOs, astral projection, ESP, clairvoyance, spirit photography, telekinetic movement, full-trance, mediums, the Loch Ness monster and the city of Atlantis? If there’s a steady paycheck in it… I’ll believe anything you say” to quote Ghostbusters.)

So rather than supporting the excellent StopSylvia, please, think for a moment. Would you not prefer to stop cj.23? Pretty please? Just a few donations, and I promise he will head off to a series of conferences and eventually Barbados or similar, and you will never be troubled by him again. So I plead of you – help STOP CJ.23!

cj x

July 4th – My challenge to Christian America

I just noticed that it is the night of the Fourth of July, so happy Independence Day to the US readers!

And for any fundamentalist Christians, I will hereby accept your surrender of the United States of America on behalf of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II, and the restoration of the colonies. After all, you would not want to go against the Holy Bible would you?

As we all know, “no taxation without representation” was a cry of the traitors like Washington, Jefferson, Franklin et al. They objected to what is today the USA being a colony of the noble British Empire, and as uppity colonials always do, thought they should run their own affairs. Jolly bad show all round.

Rather than managing to lose the war against us Brits, and getting hanged as they so richly deserved, this disreputable mob of traitors won. OK, 1812 and the White House open air bonfire and rockets party made up for it a little, but it still irritates.

However luckily these foul “Founding Fathers” were clearly a bunch of irreligious maniacs, or simply did not know their Scripture. For what system of Government does God endorse? Imperialism and colonies paying taxation without representation. For is it not written “Render unto Caesar what is Caesars, and God what is God’s?” This clearly indicates the economic system then prevalent in the Roman colony of Judea was acceptable.

So stop whinging, and give us our colonies back, and we can celebrate true patriots like Benedict Arnold and Cornwallis, rather than perpetuate this irreligious treason?

Now of course, you may object to being forced to submit to Great Britian, in which case I will cheerfully accept a surrender to me personally. I have never been a King before, but have no real objection to trying something new. I don’t think American Democracy is faring well, so why not give Enlightened Despotism and a totally nonhereditary “I-just-felt-like-giving-it-a-shot monarchy a go? King Christian I – has a nice ring to it?

I will of course give the Native Americans due credit – they were there first. Mind you, in the UK so were the Welsh…

Everyone else though, how can you go against the clear word of God and support this overthrow of a rightful government? Have you not read Paul’s Epistles, if my earlier theological justification does not convince?

I await your surrender with eager anticipation. Maybe afterwards we can have a nice cup of tea, and a plate of cucumber sandwiches?

Happy 4th July!!!
cj x

CJ crashes his bike: a blackly comic end to his cycling days? or a murder plot failed? :)

OK, I’m a bit too hot, after nearly an hour in the sun. I also seem to have a lot of road on me, and grease all over my hands. Most annoyingly, I have a bicycle that sounds like Einsturzende Neubauten (did I spell that right?) in concert when I even push it down the road which is all I am likely to be doing with it for the foreseeable. If I try and ride it it sounds like Sooty & Sweep meets the Velvet Underground crossed with Stockhausen on amphetamines. Still apart from that, a few bruises and a twisted ankle are the extent of the damage.  I can still hobble about, for which the world can be grateful or callous as the mood takes them. So what happened?

I have no idea. The facts are simple. Took bike out for spin. Notice odd clanking. Get off bike, look, not much wrong, apart from my back brake cable has been taken out – that requires considerable force, but could have happened I guess somehow. My front brake is fine. I turn for home, and noise gets worse, but luckily I’m almost outside Paul Wheeldon’s flat. I decide to wander in and see if he has a moment and any tools, and to see if I can fix it, at least reconnect the back brake. I say hi to Paul’s landlord, a nice chap, and then park my bike by the kitchen window (in the yard) and knock. No reply. I curse my luck! I knock louder, still no reply, so finally remembering Paul is at the back of the house i try the door, and finding it open wander in. Him or Rob might be asleep, but with a spoon I can always fix it. I don’t normally burgle people’s  houses! Then I hear someone out back, so I shout “Paul, yahoo, it’s CJ!” And he appears, looking like I have just shot him. Maybe he thought I was a very cheerful homicidal maniac come to slay him in his bed, or in true Mayor Quimby style his bed was actually filled with sexy young interns? Or maybe he really was juts trying to prepare his pub quiz for tonight, and could not be disturbed.  He explained politely, but in that manner people have when flustered by unexpectedly being visited by people they really do not want to see right now that he was really busy and I’d have to go. I looked around for a spoon or something, but he did not seem very amenable to any further discussion, just kept repeating “you have to go I’m busy” so I left. And then things got worse.

I’d hurt my foot wearing some shoes which are not utterly disgraceful when I went to Dudley on Friday – the wrath of Becky is far worse than sore feet – and my left foot must be bigger than my right, for it currently has plasters on – so I was limping a little. I climbed on the bike, and gingerly set off up the road, when three things happened at once – firstly a car came down the (dead end to traffic) street far too fast, on my side of the road as people are parked on the other.  Secondly my back wheel suddenly stopped turning, and then as the wheel left the ground as I put the front brake on, came off my bike entirely. I’d like to say it went rolling down the road in a cinematic manner – in fact it just seems to have fallen over on the spot, being already stationary.  I leapt left, in to a wall, entirely unnecessarily as the oncoming driver stopped, and I believe nearly died of apoplexy laughing at the sight of my ungainly impact with the road. Well actually I think it was quite graceful? Who knows. Of course I land on my bad foot and twist my ankle…

OK, so just superficial bruising, and a twisted ankle. If it had happened on the Tewkesbury Road could have been fatal, but it didn’t, it happened at really slow speed in an alley.   I now stood up, and found that my back wheel had come entirely off – the noise was caused by the nuts working free. Someone must have loosened them? That and the back brake not being attached led to the rather odd crash. Never had anything like that happen before! For a paranoid second I wondered if someone was trying to kill me. I keep my bike in the living room, and I never ever leave it unsupervised outside – I don’t even carry a lock nowadays. I just use it for pleasure jaunts. It has no panniers, and it’s hard to ride with shopping balanced on the handlebars. If I leave it at Richard’s while i go to TESCO he stands and frets over it like a mother hen guarding her young.   If it was sabotaged it was done in the house – but who would have any reason to kill CJ? Not Lisa for sure! She has access at work to far better methods anyway.

So a homicidal visitor? A mental review does not suggest any! In fact, I am totally puzzled. Yet there is one prime suspect.  A young lady, from Somerset, who has a known history of sabotage…

I have an exercise bike here. Occasionally we ride on it – I used to use it a bit till one day it fell apart under me. Lisa had exactly the same experience.  We tighten the bolts, and yet it falls apart as soon as we are riding. And one day we found out how.

The young lady, who is two years old, has uncanny strength in her paws. Hansine, a small tabby cat is also a gremlin with an amazing ability to destroy things. Unlike other cats he does not just chew them – she undoes them, with her paws. She has no malicious intent – she just plays with any loose nut, working at it till the object in question falls apart. I don’t believe she could have disconnected the brakes, but if a nut was loose, she would have amused herself for ages unscrewing it. I would not believe a word of this, had we not witnessed repeatedly her sabotaging the exercise bike.  So is she trying to kill me? Nope. But if there is a prime suspect, well Hansine is it. (NB: My cats are rather dangerous. I recently had to inform Cuddles he was not Corgi registered when he started to get very interested in the gas pipes.)

Part cat, part gremlin? Hansine the Feline Assassin?

Well I got too hot standing on that blasted road. I would normally have wheeled the bits of my bike back to Paul’s, but he was VERY busy and quite insistent. So I wandered home, having reattached the back wheel after a titanic struggle in which I discovered the British public has an amazing capacity for telling you what you know and stating the obvious “wheel come off?”, “you got  a problem with the bike?” and one girl who nervously said “do you live round here?” Yes, of course. I live just opposite. That’s why I’m standing by the side of the road sweltering covered in grease with a dismantled bicycle. I thought it so much more fun than repairing it with tools in the privacy of my own garden! One cheerful bearded fellow offered to help, but that was just as I finally got the wheel on and the forks bent back enough to actually wheel it home, and coast the last few triumphant yards down the alley where I live, bring Tina out to see what the noise was. Maybe she thought a scrap iron merchant pulling a wagon load of metal with a boneshaker, or the Angel of the Millennium heralding the Last Trump. Whatever she thought was drowned out in the cacophony of my triumphant arrival back!

Anyway enough. I’m going to the pub. I know I don’t drink, but hell, I think I might tonight. I won’t be repairing the bike in my perilous current financial state for  a month or two, but I might ask DC over to have a look. For now, I’m just glad to be in one piece!

cj x